Valentines sensory play

If you've never played with clean mud before - I urge to give it a go. I'm not going to lie it is messy (if you have a garden it might be worth doing outside) - but its lots of fun! It feels just like mud but its clean. We made a special Valentines version.

We mixed ripped up a toilet roll and I grated a bar of soap. The Frog thought ripping the paper up was hilarious (and kept sitting in the box we were using so he could throw it over himself like confetti!)

We then mixed it with some warm water (the water needs to be warm enough to melt the soap so this bits a grown up job) For a valentines touch we added a tiny bit of rose scented bubble bath (which was pink) and red glitter.

Both The Frog and The Fairy loved playing with it. It was great using a big box so they could both play at the same time - great for cooperation.

It's great for whisking and swashing with a masher.

Or with your hands (the added bonus being its a great gross motor exercise too).

The next morning The Frog requested we play with it again (he loved it so much we had a good play before breakfast!) The Fairy noticed the mud had turned a deeper shade of pink over night.

Language used: tear, rip,stir, whisk, mix, squash, press, soft, pink, shiny, flowers (when talking about the smell).

Noodle sensory play

With Chinese New Year this week end we thought we'd do a spot of noodle play.

I love activities that both of the kids can participate in and also love watching the difference in how they both play. 

The Frog is very much into putting things in and out of containers ( the teacher-ery description of this is 'enclosing'). This included the noodles. He loved squishing them as he filled bowls, then put them back into the big container. Surprisingly he didn't try to eat them!

The Fairy was less keen to touch them but still wanted to move them - she preferred a spoon. 

She later requested to do some cooking with them in her play kitchen (as a side note I made her kitchen before I started blogging - one day when I'm organised I'm planning to write a post on how I did it!).

This activity was great for using adjective words. Adjectives are so much easier to learn if children can feel and experience the word!

Wrapping paper sensory box

It's a well know fact the small people often spend time playing with the wrapping paper and boxes their presents come in than the presents themselves. Why not save some of your wrapping paper this year and make a wrapping paper sensory box? We did and had lots of fun.

We added some used wrapping paper, shiny bits and a bow. The Frog thought it was so great that he jumped in!

The paper makes a great crinkly sound.

We will be posting some more recycling wrapping paper ideas after Christmas so don't recycle all of you paper - keep some for creating and playing. You might like to check out some of other sensory boxes/ bins too, just click on the link. Polar, Spring, Royal, and Nativity.